Sisters and Miami locals Sabrina and Silvia Scandar launch a clever start-up — www.sewlove.co — aimed to change the world of fashion.

“Anyone with an idea for a clothing item can submit the idea online, share it with the Sew Love community, receive feedback from design enthusiasts, and potentially see that idea produced and sold by Sew Love. With our monthly challenges, designers get their name on the label and a percentage of the profits from sales,” Sabrina says. We chat up Sabrina on her clever start-up.

How did you come up with this concept? Sew Love came about because my sister, Silvia had some ideas for outfits she wanted to make and decided to take up sewing. As she was learning to sew, she started to research the fashion industry and realized that the barriers for new designers are high. She had seen different crowdsourcing websites for other industries and decided that this could solve the problem for novices like herself and for design school graduates. So she and I decided to build a company based on the idea that anyone can be involved in the process of creating clothing.

How do the challenges work? It's not about winning or losing, but working together to develop good ideas. Each challenge runs 30 or 60 days and has a specific theme. We also partner with non-profits or other organizations to run customized challenges, which give users a chance to interact meaningfully with an organization. For example, right now we are running a challenge for an upcycled handbag, which will be produced by Project Repat, a Boston-based non-profit that makes upcycled products.

Your partner is your sister, how do your describe that dynamic? It’s great! We have very different strengths that complement each other nicely, and we’re very open and honest with each other, which is important. We have always been extremely close—a few years ago, we even shared a tiny bedroom — with one small closet! — in an apartment for three months. If we survived that, we can survive anything!